Wendy’s Goes Viral With “Crazy Lettuce”

Well, kind of viral. The video has about 17,000 views on Youtube, but a more impressive 80,000 on MySpace since the videos were added in late August. This is all part of an effort to promote their new “Meatatarians” advertising campaign. The campaign features a website called Meatatarians Unite.

The site describes itself as such:

The Highly Esteemed Council of Meatatarians is an establishment of meat lovers and eaters whose goal is to eat meat, and only meat, without the inclusion of other non-meat products, while celebrating meat with the utmost regard. Our goal is to continue our dominance atop the food chain and bring meat lovers to a new understanding of their nature, their calling to become true Meatatarians.

Along with this website, Wendy’s has made their first foray into the world of viral videos, releasing this video called “Crazy Lettuce”:

Ok. Not bad. But not great either. It reminds me a little of the cell phone popcorn videos – a little CGI used to cause a totally unbelievable “movement” by a food item. Meh.Â Personally, I’m bummed they scrapped the Hot, Juicy, Burger campaign and the guy in the Wendy’s wig that went along with it.

Not to mention, a campaign devoted to encouraging people to eat meat, and nothing but meat? Now obviously that’s not responsible marketing in terms of health. I get that this is supposed to be a light-hearted approach to encourage people to embrace bigger burgers.Â But seriously, at the crux of efforts everywhere to slow the growth of fast food expansion and demand encourage nutrition labeling in fast food restaurants, is now really the best time to convince people to embrace a campaign encouraging an all meat diet?